A Brisk Young Sailor
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
A brisk young sailor came courting me
Until he gained my liberty.
He stole my heart with free good will
And he's got it now, but I love him still.
There is an ale house in yonder town
Where my love goes and he sits him down.
He takes some strange girl on his knees
And he tells her what he does not tell me.
Hard grief for me and I'll tell you why,
Because that she has more gold than I.
her gold will waste, her beauty pass,
And she'll come like me, a poor girl, at last.
I wish to God that my babe was born,
Sat smiling all on its father's knee;
And I in my cold grave was lain
With the green grass growing all over me.
There is a bird all in yonder tree;
Some say he's blind and he cannot see.
I wish it'd been the same by me
Before I'd gain'd my love's company.
The greenest field it shall be my bed.
A flow'ry pillow shall rest my head,
The leaves which blow from tree to tree,
They shall be the coverlets over.
"A Brisk Young Sailor (Courted Me)", also known as "The Bold Young Farmer", "The Alehouse",<br> "Died For Love" and "I Wish My Baby Was Born" amongst other titles, is a traditional folk ballad,<br> which has been collected from all over Britain, Ireland and North America.<br> The song originated in England in the early 1600s.<br> It is a variant of<br> "The Butcher's Boy"<br> family of ballads.<br> Percy Grainger recorded this one in 1906 from Mrs. Thompson at Barrow-on-Humber. It appears in his<br> Lincolnshire Posy as "The Brisk Young Sailor".<br> It was recorded by<br> Joseph Taylor on a wax cylinder recording made by Percy Grainger in 1908 (as "Died for Love"),<br> Martin Carthy (unaccompanied and with an additional verse) on Prince Heathen (1969) (with Dave<br> Swarbrick),<br> A.L. Lloyd on English Street Songs (1956) (as "Died for Love"),<br> Shirley Collins on False True Lovers (1959) (as "Died for Love"),<br> John Roberts & Tony Barrand sang "Died for Love" on Heartoutbursts (1998).<br> It was included in the Roud Folk Song Index as #60.<br> It was printed in<br> Belden's Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society (1955),<br> Belden and Hudson, Eds, The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore,<br> Greig and Duncan's The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, Volume 6 (1995)<br> Karpeles' The Crystal Spring: English Folk Songs Collected by Cecil Sharp (1975),<br> Kidson's Traditional Tunes (1999),<br> Killion and Waller's A Treasury of Georgia Folklore (1972) (as "A Railroad Boy"),<br> Korson's Pennsylvania Songs and Legends (1949),<br> Leather's Folk-Lore of Herefordshire (1912/republished 1970),<br> Palmer's English Country Songbook (1979),<br> Palmer's Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1983),<br> Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1965) and<br> Sharp's One Hundred English Folksongs (1916).<br>
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